


Queens and Princes

by another_Hero



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Miscarriage, it doesn't happen in the story tbc it's just discussed, mention of child death, the king george job
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23549638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/another_Hero/pseuds/another_Hero
Summary: "We’re getting old enough our lives have been long"
Relationships: Maggie Collins/Nathan Ford (background), Sophie Devereaux/Nathan Ford
Kudos: 14





	Queens and Princes

**Author's Note:**

> mind the tags pls! I have no idea why I wrote this and it absolutely is not good enough to be worth triggering yourself over sooo

She’s quiet after her aunt—her aunt, that’s news in itself. But it seems like she’s processing the conversation he heard just half of. He wants to know; he thinks she might want to share. She’d be able to invite that graciously, or with some pressure, if she wanted to. He just stays quiet, tries to leave her room.

But it doesn’t work, so he says, “You want to talk about it?”

Her face relaxes into performance, and he wishes he hadn’t. “We’re getting old enough our lives have been long,” she says.

He nods. Takes her hand, here in the street. No one watching knows them. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve never once held hands. “We’ve both lost a couple,” he agrees. She’s lost more lives than he has, he thinks, but he doesn’t know as much about that as she does about his.

She brushes this off. “I mean, it’s not the same, I never lost—” and he figures she’s going to say _a kid_ , or something like that, but nicer, but her gaze goes inward, and he’s not sure he’s welcome to follow her there.

He brushes the back of her thumb, a question, and keeps an eye on the sidewalk because he’s not sure she’s paying any attention.

He can see her decide to tell the truth, and it’s terrifying, and he realizes he might be way too in this. “I had a miscarriage once,” she says, like a confession, and before he can choose a response, “but it’s not the same thing at all—I was _relieved_.” She grimaces at him. “I’m sorry, that’s an awful thing to say to you.”

“No,” he whispers, a slight shake of his head. This is more than she’s ever told him; he doesn’t want her to stop. He doesn’t like to imagine Sophie that way, younger than he’d ever known her, in pain and grateful. Same way he doesn’t like to remember Maggie, before Sam, tiny with her face in the couch, insisting she only needed to call off work for the one day, promising him—that first one—that this was ordinary, that they had plenty of time. Same way he doesn’t like to imagine Maggie, years later, curled up in bed on a heating pad after an evening with the bedroom door locked and Nate in charge of the toddler, cradling her belly and telling him they wouldn’t be trying this again. He’s always thought of Sophie as free when she was young, in a way he could never be.

“William was heartbroken,” she admits. “I hadn’t even told him I was—well. And all I could think was how I’d escaped, and I might not escape the next time. And I knew I had to leave.” She shrugs, like her ongoing survival was destiny rather than effort. “It’s not the same,” she says again. “I gave it up willingly. I’m sorry, this is cruel, I’m sure Maggie—”

He can’t tell why she cuts herself off. “How?” he says. “Have you—talked about—”

She raises her eyebrows. “You both would have wanted more than one,” she says. “It’s likely.”

He concedes with a quick, tight “yep.” But it’s a life ago, a want that got too troublesome and had to be let go. So he turns back to her. “You didn’t.”

“Can you imagine?” He glances over and she’s shaking her head, rolling her eyes. He can, vaguely, but she’d have had to choose to be someone else.

It’s easier to think of her as she is now, grown and experienced and capable. Maggie, too, has a power these days that he knows was always there, but that it seems she’s learned to use efficiently and without questioning. He’s not naïve; it wasn’t loss that made her that way. “What were you like?” he asks Sophie. He’d like to tuck in closer against her, but he thinks that might be an alcohol-induced impulse, and he hasn’t had enough to act on it.

She shakes her head. “When I left? So, so self-assured,” she tells him, and there’s a faint smile in her voice now, the knock of her shoulder on his. “And terrified. And heartbroken. And thrilled. I felt powerful. But I was very new.”

He wants to ask what she was like before that. Her aunt still talked like she loved her. They’re nearly back at Claridge’s, and she drops his hand.


End file.
